Working, painting, ...

We are going to have some activities, games etc and an inforamtion stand about the LDA Subotica (Local Democracy Agency) at the Trenchtown Music-Festival in a forest closed to Subotica. So these days I have a lot of work preparing these activities, but its also quit creative...yes, I could finally bring in some ideas :). So monday evening Ivana (my language teacher)and I and Angela and Dejana a bit as well were painting from 4 to 11 pm a huge carton with holes to put your had in and taking pictures. It was really fun.

Budapest-Budimpest

 
 
 
 

I told you this already, on my journey to Subotica I spent also a few days in Budapest where I met also my russian friend Mila and my hungarian friend Maria, who organised Peter, a great "city guide" for us :)
So here some impression from Budapest in March 2009.

Pictures "Welcome to Subotica"

 
 
 
 

Youhouuu! I finnaly got the letter with the charger for my camera that I forgot in Switzerland.So I can make pictures and show you the ones I took in the very beginning. I just show you somem pictures of my arrival here. How my room was decorated like, me in the main pedestrian street the "korzo", still in winter, and my and Dejana, my tutor in the LDA office.

Back to work…

Spending my days calling the european embassies in Belgrade, asking if they got the LDAs invitation fort he 9th of May, Day of Europe and if so, if somebody will come (nobody comes until now, all involved in the activities in Belgrade), and if they will send us some promotion material of their countries for a kind of “Euro-fair” that LDA is going to organize on the city square. Beside this I am looking for information about sustainable tourism in Serbia and about methods and ideas for promotion of creativity in schools. Yes, that summaries my work at that moment. Oh, and this evening we have an other meeting to prepare our activities at the Trenchtown-Musicfestival (30th April to 2nd May) and tomorrow a meeting with some educators of the dormitory to talk about the workshops I am going to have here.

Szeged…over the border

On Monday Svetislav, a guy working for the towns museum, and a former collaborator of LDA, invited me to a trip to Szeged. Szeged is the nearest town over the Hungarian Border. It is really closed, just about 40 km north from here, but still it took us far more than an hour to get there because of the border controls. Obviously Hungarian guardian didn’t change since socialist times…They checked every single passport, copying name etc. one by one in there computers, although we all had new passports, that you could just scan and then they checked the cars, asking to open motor hub etc, just to control we didn’t hide some drugs etc. It took a loooong time. I don’t want to imagine what it is like after holydays….
Szeged has a nice center, some really beautiful buildings, but I have to say, I prefer Subotica. There is more characteristic, personality, live and even just places to stroll around, here than there.

Fruska Gora- Vojvodinas Alps :)

 
 
 
 

I met a guy in Subotica, who told me he was an active member of Suboticas alpinist clubs and who invited me to come to hikes in the Serbian mountains. The first mountain in Serbia is Fruska Gora, near Novi Sad, 100 km south of Subotica. The second one another 100 km further. You have to know Vojvodina is mainly just flat. Really flat. There is not even a hill of 3, 4 meters. So Fruska Gora is what we would call a forest in Switzerland. Okay, a forest on a hill. But which forest in Switzerland isn’t on a hill?
In Vojvodina they call it mountain. So on Sunday I went with the Novi Sad Alpinist Club for a 20 km hike in Fruska Gora. It is a really beautiful place. A chain of hills all covered by beautiful forest, with very high trees, that now, in the beginning of spring, have this shiny bright green leaves.
Still it was like a joke, having to follow a mountain guide for a simple walk through the forest. We were a group of almost 40 persons and walking pretty slow, so when I wanted to walk a little faster one of the guide women, called me back, saying: “Stay behind me! The alpinist codex says that everyone has to follow behind the guide!” (Maiann, han di grad vermisst, het di gern chli agsmilet in dem Moment und ab dem Chnuschti dr Chopf gschuettlet). Yeah, what an alpinist codex for some hills!
Still, it’s a beautiful place.

Some days off in Novi Sad

There was orthodox eastern las weekend…so we had a second weekend off. I used this short holydays to pass some days in Novi Sad, Vojvodinas capital, about 100 km south of Subotica. Novi Sad has maybe the double of habitants, but seams much bigger than Subotica. I really loved it for being full of shops, cosy coffee places, bars, fancy and less stylish ones and people. I also got to meet some more EVS-volunteers. I am the only EVS in Subotica, but there are eight of them in Novi Sad. I had already met Marta and Manu before, in the IBB-Training and now got to know the other girls. I am glad to be the only foreigner volunteer in Subotica, so I don’t run the risk to spend all my time with other foreigners. Still seeing them like that, spending all there free time together, being really good and close friends, I got little bit of jalous, not to having this international company. I mean, if ever they have any problem with there EVS or Serbia or cultural misunderstanding etc. they have each other, and they all are in the same situation and can understand each other…
But anyway, I can’t complain about my situation either. So I spent a lot of time in Novi Sad, walking around, discovering all the backyards with small shops (spending all my money on earrings!!) and bars, the amazing fortress of Petrovaradin, where the EXIT-Festival is going to take place, and then sitting in coffees and bars with the Novi Sad Volunteers and some Serbian friends of them. Saturday night Irene, an Italian volunteer, took me with their friends to watch a movie in a friends place. I spent a nice and calm evening at the home of her friends. Oh, and Sunday I went to Fruska Gora.

Last news

There has happened a lot during the last weeks...So I will just resume the most important facts:
- I bought a bike, it's a very good quality secondhand bike I bought it for 100 euros and already used it last saturday to drive to the small but pretty town of Sombor, 60 km from Subotica and for some other smaller tours. I also got to know Nikola, the guy who sold me the bike. He is very friendly, and invited me to visit him and his family every time I wish to.
- During my biketrip to Sombor I noticed once more the world is very small...In a small village on the way I met a woman, who is a friend of a friend of my parents...
- There was eastern...I went to church saturday night, to see who it was celebrated here. The most fascinating was, that the catholic celebration, that took more than 2 1/2 hours was held in two languages: croatian in hungarian. Serbian people celebrate orthodox eastern next sunday. I realised Subotica was really a very multicultural town.
- I have been invited to several flats now...and I think it is allways very intersting. Most of families live in very small space, in old flats...but yesterday evening I was at a birthday party of two students, sharing a flat and this one looked pretty much like a students flat looks like in Switzerland...so, everything exists...
- I had my first crisis, like being sad, feeling useless at work, being a little homesick last week but now already overcame it. This bad moments are part of integration in a new place I guess
- I am leaving for Novi Sad, the capital of Vojvodina this afternoon. I will spend some days there with Irene and Manu, other volunteers I got to know during the training in my second week here. I am curious how Novi Sad is like...they say it is pretty different from Subotica, but nice as well...I will see...

Memories

It is already the third time I am for several months living abroad. So until now nothing was really shocking me here in Serbia, as almost every thing that is different, I kind of can put it somewhere in a scale between Honduras, Russia and Switzerland. And in most cases, although Serbia is really different from Switzerland, it is not that far from Switzerland as are Russia and Honduras.The unfriendly women in the station selling me the trainticket to Novi Sad this morning, remembered me of Russia, the same do some communist style buildings, the dormitory, the bureaucracy it needs to start my workshops in the dormitory or to organize any other event...but still it is not that worse as it was in Russia. Many things remember me of South America as well. Especially now, that is worm outside, and all the places and streets are crowded with people, walking, sitting and talking in front of a small shop or snack place in the corner. Loud music in public places. And then the smells....On monday while I was riding my bike to the hungarian border there was this very special smell in the air, that recalled me all my memories from Honduras. I was really happy and content while driving the bike along this road, feeling the sun and wind and tasting this smell...until I realized this smell,, that remembered me so much of Honduras was actually the smell of burned rubbish. I really had to laugh, when I realized that the smell of burned rubbish could awake such positive emotions in me :).

Spring time

It's finally spring! I am so happy about it! :) Wonderful weather, sunshine, birds sing, the trees have their first leaves and since yesterday, the tree, just across the street, is all white, full of flowers. I allready have a pretty full programme with sessions, work in the office, writing some texts and comments for the website, thinking about workshop-programme for the highscool-students of my dormitory, having language classes, doing home-work...but still I try and I manage, to enjoy a maximum of this beautiful weather. I was walking around the town the whole weekend. First, on saturday morning, we went with Ivana, my "serbian teacher", to the "Buvljak", a huge market place, where you can find every thing you wish, and most stuff, pretty cheap. Later we were in the center, on sunday morning I have been with some girls I knew in the training, to big park and in the afternoon to turistic place near to Subotica, called "Palic". There is a nice lake, a lot of tourists, there was sunshine and souvenirstands. It really felt like holydays. :)
Oh, and I started to read the book "Der kleine König Macius". It's originally a book for children, but you know me, I love this kind of books. And it is really interesting, I can't stop reading...